


Faerie Groom

by Hesperis



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: AU - But can also be canon, F/M, Freeform, Gen, Jonathan Daye is a Merrow, Jonathan Daye lives, Mourning the loss of a child, Mourning the loss of a spouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29126553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hesperis/pseuds/Hesperis
Summary: Jonathan Daye buries his wife and daughter, fakes his death, and has an unexpected half a century.
Relationships: Amandine/Jonathan Daye, Jonathan Daye and October "Toby" Daye
Comments: 15
Kudos: 28





	Faerie Groom

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: This was inspired by an exhaustion fueled dream and encouraged by the October Daye discord. I am aware that I am probably contradicting canon somewhere and stretching it to its extremes in other places, though I did try to stick to it as closely as I could to the borders set up by it. The plot is driven by “a dream told me to” and “the character decided he really wanted to” and therefore is what it is. Snippets of dialogue taken from A Killing Frost. Thank you to Airawyn for the Beta and the Discord for encouragement!

He’s 74 when he buries his daughter. He knew that going in he would outlive both her and his wife. That’s always the price for playing faerie bride, even when you’re as thin blooded as he is. He just always thought he’d get more time. He wanted to see his little girl grow up into the amazing woman he knew she would be. He wanted to see laugh lines appear on his beloved’s face. Instead, he buries them in a cemetery outside the city. There’s barely any friends and no family to come.

He wraps up his life, closes down his practice, and walks away from it all two years later.

No one who knows him is surprised that Jonathan Daye dies young, not after what happened to his wife and young daughter. It was so tragic, what befell Natasha and October Daye.

He spends the 60s in a haze up and down the east coast of North America. He’s tried before to get away from the ocean, but any more than a few weeks and he finds himself back at the coast. His Merrow blood is thin enough that he passes for human without any magic, and not that he has much of that, and he can’t even shift his legs to a tail, but the urge for the sea is always there. Natasha hadn’t been much of a swimmer and Toby had just started splashing around, so at least in the water he can almost escape from the memories for a few hours.

The 70s are weird.

There is a point in 1982 when Jonathan pauses outside of a warehouse, clutching a mysterious briefcase he was told to pick up, and tries to figure out the bizarre series of events that led him to this moment and what exactly he thinks he’s doing. He wasn’t lying when he told Natasha, who still remains in his heart and his mind as the only woman he’s ever loved, that he was Irish. He really has spent most of the last half a century working on and off as an accountant. He really isn’t sure how he ended up working for an offshoot of the mob that is mostly made up off of changelings and thin bloods. He doesn’t particularly like it.

The job goes well.

Too well.

Jonathan finds himself having to fake his own death yet again in 1985 after working as an accountant for the actually human mob for two years. He may not be able to shift his legs or go to great depths or anything else his great-grandparents may have done, but he can hold his breath for far longer than an average, somewhat out of shape, very tired accountant from New Jersey can be expected to.

In 1994, in yet another abandoned warehouse, though this one at least is in Montreal for a change, Jonathan discovers to his outmost surprise that the name Daye apparently carries some weight in the thin blooded circles. He chides himself about not paying enough attention to whatever was going on in Hoboken in ’83. 

He does some work for the local mob. He does some work for the local fae. He does some work for the local DA’s office. He does some work for a private detective locating lost children. Of the dozen cases he tackles, two turn out to be Changeling children. He stops working for the private detective because it gets in the way of his plan to work so hard he doesn’t think about Natasha and October, dead these thirty odd years and yet always on his mind. He can’t quite shake the afterimage he gets, watching a slight blonde woman cry about her missing daughter. Natasha was far more pale and always laughing and almost dancing through life, but there’s still something about her that’s just a bit too close.

Sometimes, as he floats on his back in the cold embrace of the Atlantic ocean after swimming for hours on end, he lets his mind wander. She would have been a child of the ocean, his Toby, taking to swimming like she was born to it. He didn’t have much fae blood to pass on and she had taken after her mother in most of her looks, but he knows in his bones that at least this he would have given her. Here, in the dark and quiet, he closes his eyes and for a moment pretends there’s a little brunette girl giggling and swimming laps around him as his beloved watches from shore, a smile on her face as she watches them over her book. And if there’s salt water on his face as he swims back to shore, he blames it on the ocean.

He spends the rest of the 1990s and most of the 2000s developing a rather odd reputation as the man to come to if you need to deal with any kind of human government. He never forges anything – he still insists he’s an accountant to anyone who asks, and really, that’s all he is – he just happens to know a lot of people who happen to know a lot of other people. 

He knows that even if Natasha and Toby had lived, he would have long since had to have left them as well. His illusions are non-existent, and he would not be able to cover up that his aging was far too slow for a normal human. There are wrinkles around his eyes now, but he can barely pass for a man in his 40s, much less approaching his 80s. The numbers that he can so easily lose himself in don’t offer any comfort from always wondering and always missing the one human woman he had loved, and their little girl who never got a chance.

Looking back, he’s fairly certain he can blame a lot of what happens on grief, poor life choices, and an urge to just not think about the world for a bit. It starts with a little girl walking with her parents who reminds him a little bit too much of his October and the next thing he knows, he’s promised some very powerful people that he absolutely can help them arrange some completely legitimate documents for their completely legitimate child and really, he should have learned from his experiences in Hoboken. Somehow, he only has to dive into a convenient body of water two times and manages to go above and beyond what his employers had expected. He tells himself it has nothing to do with the fact that the child is the age his Toby was, with the same dark hair and the same light eyes.

As long as he lives, and after his latest job that number has gone up significantly, he never talks about the bizarre set of circumstances that occur in 2012 that technically had begun with him simply helping file taxes and end with him starring down at his hands, far more webbed than they used to be. 

He spends most of 2013 in the ocean, learning how to navigate the familiar currents under water and with a tail. It’s all rather odd and he’s still not sure he’s happy about his new circumstances. He’s spent most of his life on the outskirts of human, thin blood, and fae society, if not completely outside of them at times. He has no plans to join it now that he’s been, partially involuntarily, upgraded from thin blood to changeling, no matter what his prior employers seem to think.

Once he thinks he has a handle on what he can do – swim very fast and very far – and what he wants to do – get away from people who have begun to try to get friendly – he packs up things, closes down his office, and once again fakes his death by drowning. He’s gotten very good at it.

When he had first left San Francisco in 1961, he swore he would never come back. There were too many memories and it felt like every single street held yet another whisp of October and Natasha. This was the playground he used to take Toby to on the weekends, this is the corner where the five-and-dime that Natasha had worked used to stand. It had been too much in 1961 and it feels completely foreign in 2014. But it also feels like coming home.

He gets a new license, he opens a new business, he gets a certain type of client – too thin blooded to run in the world of the fae but not quite human enough to live normal lives – and he promises himself that this time he is not going to get involved in anything more complex than an amended filing. He forgets sometimes that he’s even less human now than he used to be and walks outside a few times with ears a bit too pointed. It’s been over half a century, the grief isn’t as fresh any more and the city has changed enough that he can’t recognize the stores he used to go to with Natasha.

He’s been in the city for half a year when he finds out from a client that apparently the nearby knowe was having a formal event and somehow by the time he has finished helping them with a tricky bit of paperwork, he’s agreed to attend as a guest. At least, he tries to convince himself, the food should be good. And as far as he knows, there’s a lot less underworld activity of any kind.

Muir Woods is exactly how he remembers it – fifty years really isn’t that long to an ancient forest, which he supposes is a metaphor for something or other that he’s too tired to look too closely at. He feels underdressed in his suit and tie and forgets to take the illusion off of his ears but the food is good and there is a surprisingly diverse amount of fae gathered around. Sometimes, there’s a ripple of whispers through the crowd, but he’s usually at the edge and has no idea who anyone is anyway.

Jonathan has carefully positioned himself in a corner where he can avoid people, have a quick way out, and mostly see what’s going on just as it gets to midnight. A familiar face catches his eye and he blinks and stares. He’s certain he’s never met the pale, probably Daoine Sidhe woman in the slate grey dress, with a surprisingly practical looking belt and knife, but there’s something about her that makes him certain he’s seen her before. 

He turns back to the proceedings and is hit with vertigo. The woman in the white dress, with little color to her features and with a similar daughter trailing behind her. The one who is here to be divorced. The full blooded fae, with the proud bearing and the nose he still saw in his dreams that left him crying as he woke up. His mind refuses to put together the pieces. 

“I lay with a human because I was lonely.” The woman – Amandine, her name is Amandine not Natasha, he is seeing things, his mind refuses to put together the pieces.

The woman who outs herself as Firstborn.

The woman who’s chin proudly juts out in a way he’s seen a thousand times.

His mind refuses to put together the pieces.

The woman moves her head and her hair ripples in a way he’s seen a thousand times.

His mind refuses to put together the pieces.

The queen on the throne clears her throat and calls for the children.

There is an odd ringing in his ears.

His mind refuses to put together the pieces.

The familiar but not familiar woman, the young one, not the pale one, the one just called forward as October Daye, moves to the center of the room.

The ringing in his ears gets louder.

He’s always wondered what his daughter would look like grown up.

This wasn’t quite what he could have ever imagined, because even in his wildest dreams she had been far more human.

He watches his little girl, his mind can no longer deny it, not when she claims the middle name he insisted on giving her, not when he sees her familiar chin, her nose, her eyes – their color may have faded as her mother’s apparently fae heritage won over, but he knows their shape, knows how she used to smile and twirl. 

The whole world feels distant and oddly contrasted, but the ringing has stopped and all he sees is October, alive, grown up, and declaring herself for her father.

Jonathan blinks as his brain does the equivalent of a train crash and turns back around. That can’t be his Natasha calling their amazing little girl a mongrel. It can’t. The ringing is back and he’s thankful he’s positioned himself near the food because it’s a fairly easy step to pour himself a glass of something he hopes is highly alcoholic. 

The ringing makes it hard to hear, but he can’t quite believe what the other girl, August, his daughter’s sister, what she’s saying about Natasha. No, not Natasha. Natasha never existed. Natasha was a dream. Natasha was a fantasy of a beautiful young woman who had fallen in love with him and join him in dramatic readings of Shakespeare and got baffled by all the types of cereal and can openers and laundry powder and all the other thousand little things that he should have possibly noticed but was so swept up into the faery tale. 

Jonathan glances down at his glass for just a second, a moment to gather what still passes for his thoughts and is surprised to find a few tears dropping into his glass. He’s not sure what or who he’s crying for. Maybe it’s even a little bit for himself.

He pulls himself together just in time to hear a horrible, almost inhuman screeching noise come from Na – Amandine. From Amandine, who is a Firstborn and is throwing what he would consider a rather spectacular temper tantrum. From Amandine, who called their daughter a mongrel. From Amandine, who just got put in place by her sister, who is also a Firstborn. The buzzing noise comes back.

The divorce suddenly shifts to a wedding. Jonathan wills his mind to keep up with the proceedings, but from the sounds of it, he’s not the only one who’s very confused as to what’s going on. A very teeny part of him is happy to hear that he’s not the only one surprised that Nat-Ama-his daughter’s mother is Firstborn. 

His daughter.

He easily finds her in the crowd watching the proceedings with a small smile and a Cat Sidhe man standing with her, close and supportive enough that he must at least be a boyfriend if not more. He lets the words of the sea witch wash around him as he drinks up the sight of his daughter’s face. It’s nothing like he had imagined but it’s still her and he cannot stop looking. 

The happy threesome are married and there’s cheering but all he sees is October’s smile as the man she’s with leads her to the dance floor. A cake is brought out. People around him gossip about what just happened. He tries to force himself to move but he may as well have been rooted to the spot, so he stands in his corner, clutching at his glass, trying to make sense of anything. Apparently, everyone around him is also confused, but for quite different reasons. He keeps hearing their names – October and Amandine – and tries to follow what people are saying but he can’t really focus and pours himself another drink.

He resurfaces to find himself talking to the woman who works for his clients. She has a lot of opinions on everyone and he tries to focus on the conversation and what she’s saying but all he hears is October, October, October. 

He blinks and turns the conversation in the direction of his daughter. His daughter, who’s alive and dancing and talking and is half a room away, if only he could make his legs works. His legs refuse to work. The woman he’s talking to – he’s certain he knew her name at some point, but right now he’s not certain he knows his own name – goes on a monologue about October and the chaos she causes, and he feels a spot of pride and amusement behind the never ending static.

He has no memory of how he gets home, but since he then has to go back and pick up his car later at least he wasn’t driving in that state. He gives himself a day to try to come to terms with the fact that he has somehow gotten his most dearest wish but it seems to have involved a rather twisted monkey’s paw. His wife was a lie. His daughter lives. His daughter lives. His daughter lives.

It takes him another two days to pull himself together, realize he’s misplaced his car, and begin trying to figure out how to quickly and quietly find October. It takes less then ten minutes, since she’s not exactly hiding. She’s so close it easier for him to walk rather than drive. For all he knows, he may have passed her in the street.

He needs another day after that.

A scowling teenager opens the door a minute after Jonathan rings the doorbell, an hour after sunset on the day when he shows up at the house he’s fairly sure his daughter lives in. 

“We’re not buying anything.” The teen grouses at him, scowl firmly in place.

“Um.” Jonathan says eloquently. 

The teen scowls and began to close the door.

“Wait!” Jonathan blurted out. “Does October – October Daye live here?” He asks.

The teen scowls harder. “Depends.”

“Can you tell her that, let her know that, tell her that.” Jonathan swallowed, paused, and started again, as calm as he could make his voice. “Can you tell her that, that her mother wasn’t the only one playing faerie bride.”

The teen’s scowl froze, and his eyes went almost comically wide as he turned around. “Toby! Toby your family keeps getting weirder!” He shouted somewhere into the house.

Jonathan blinked and hoped that had something to do with the fact that apparently his wife was a Firstborn. Someone in the house shouted back, several voices said something about cereal, and finally, finally the door opened all the way, and the scowling teenager was replaced by his daughter. 

Up close and without the updo she had been in at the divorce turned wedding, there was no question in his mind that this was his little girl, all grown up. He remembered that he had words he had planned to say. He was sure they were useful. But he was too busy drinking in every detail of this unfamiliar but oh so familiar woman.

October was rapidly and looked like she herself needed a moment to find. Finally, when she spoke, her voice was thin and sounded like it came from a long distance. “Daddy?”

Jonathan managed a small smile. “Hello baby. It’s been a long time.”


End file.
